First Night Home

I have another great guest post for you today!  The lovely Steph from Watching Airplanes is going to share with you about her first night at home as a mom.  I’m sure many of you can relate!

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Hello everyone!  My name is Steph and I blog at Watching Airplanes.  I'm 29 ish and a new mommy to our baby girl, Aubria.  She was born on April 30th.  My husband, Matt, was Active Duty Army, then Army Reserves, and is now in the National Guard.  He's pretty "special" but I wouldn't trade him or Aubria for the world.
First of all, thank you PoeKitten for allowing to post on your blog while you are away from it.  I wish you and your husband nothing but the best in your adventure of parenthood. 

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Aubria (we call her Aubri, too) was born on a Monday morning at 7:47 a.m.  On Wednesday around noon, they said we could go home.  They didn't screen us to make sure we were fit parents.  They just gave us a few instructions on how to give her a bath and what her poop should look like and stuff like that.  Then they sent us on our way.

The first afternoon and evening went well.  She slept a lot.  I straightened up the house and my husband played in his garage for awhile.

Then came bedtime.  I had gotten a pretty pink bassinet at my baby shower.  It has toys, made womb sounds, and vibrates.  You know, the whole nine yards.  I thought, what baby girl wouldn't want to sleep in it.

Matt and I had decided that we were going to wake up with her together, feed her together, changer her together.  Well, that went out the window around midnight when she had already been awake three times.  Matt looked at me and said, "Babe, I can't. Can you take care of her and I will next time?"  I told him that was fine.
So, we alternated shifts.  Feed her. Changed her. Rocked her. Put her down.  Repeat.  At some point in the night, I woke up and found him asleep on the floor next to her bassinet, in our room, covered up with a baby afghan.  I was too tired to take a pictures but I should have.

Around 5:00 a.m., I texted my mom.  She had told us that if we needed anything to let her know and that she would come over the next morning.  I texted her and told her that we were up and to come over whenever she was ready.  She showed up around 6 and rang the doorbell a couple times before Matt heard it. (I never heard it.)  From what she told me later, Matt opened the front door in his boxers, hung his head, turned around and headed to the bedroom, and didn't say a word.  Mom took care of Aubri and let us sleep till 10:00 or so.

At some point the next day, we decided that maybe she hated her bassinet.  I had bought a rock -n- play to carry around from room to room and use in the camper.  So, we thought maybe we would try that the next night.  It cradles her more and I could rock her in it while laying in bed.  It was worth a shot.

The next night we put her in it she slept three hours at a time.  She's slept in it ever since.  She's actually sleeping in it as I type this.  I take it to the living room for her to nap in, she'll lay in it in the kitchen while we eat, and we've taken her camping and she's slept in it in the camper.  I would definitely recommend having one.  It was, by far, the best $50 investment we made in baby gear.

Congrats again to PoeKitten and family!  Hope your first night home goes smoothly!